


Five Roads Not Taken (And One That Was)

by Carmarthen



Category: Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon, Blood Brothers, Break Up, Cultural Conflict, Death, Deathfic, Dogs, Fate, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Happy Gay Shepherds, Hopeful Ending, Human Sacrifice, M/M, Shieldbearers, Teen Romance, Translation Available, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:18:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a Five Things Plus One story about ways that Marcus Flavius Aquila and Esca son of Cunoval might have met, and fortunately did not--and one way they did, which went rather better. Basically a set of depressing canon-era AUs plus some happiness. (Also available in Russian translation.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Man in the Bog

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Пять нехоженых дорог (и один пройденный путь)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/741488) by [Anerin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anerin/pseuds/Anerin)



> Aside from part six, these are not happy stories, and the whole things comes with a blanket warning for major character death and moderately explicit violence (no worse than Sutcliff).
> 
> Thanks to all who offered constructive comments and research help during my drafting process, including Smillaraaq, bunn, and Sineala, and to everyone who encouraged this endeavor. ♥
> 
> Additional warnings and summaries on each part. A Russian translation by Aneirin is available here: [Пять нехоженых дорог (и один пройденный путь)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/741488)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this lifetime, Centurion Marcus Flavius Aquila's first command post is to the Sixth Legion Victrix, posted near Eburacum. It is the sort of post given to a man who has always been a good soldier, but whose father's name is blackened. And in the course of his duties, he happens upon the evidence of a tragic uprising some years back...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for Part I:** Major character death, past human sacrifice.

When he had dreamt as a boy in Etruria of becoming a soldier, Marcus Aquila had not thought that his first command would be of the last century of the rawest cohort of the Sixth Legion Victrix, much less that he would be set to draining bogs. His legs itched with dried mud and insect bites, the bog-smell of sulphur and rot clung to everything and flavored his food, and he felt as though he had not had a full night’s sleep since his transfer to Britain.

The entire project had seemed cursed from the start. The local Brigantes tribesmen did nothing so obvious as attack, no, but every morning more tools and timber were missing, and there seemed to be no game for miles around, leaving the men to eat only raisins and wheat porridge. The orders from above were to ignore these minor inconveniences, but Marcus’s superior officers did not have to contend with eighty wet, hungry, irritable soldiers whose wine ration had inexplicably vanished—whether to theft by some tribesman or theft by some enterprising soldier thinking to sell it to the tribesmen mattered little—as well as cantankerous engineers who gave orders as if they were in charge and made the rest of the soldiers bristle and snarl like curs kept in too-close quarters.

And then there were the tents, which did not bear thinking about at all. He only hoped they would finish their task before autumn rains truly set in.

“Sir! There’s a body in the peat!” someone shouted from below.

Marcus sighed and made his way down the hill, his optio Nectovelius at his heels. Bodies. The perfect end to a perfect day. Likely it was just some local who’d been knifed in a dispute and dumped in the bog, or a farmer who’d lost his way in the fog and drowned, but if it was Roman and looked to be murder, they would have to call in the city authorities to investigate. And then there would be politics. Marcus hated politics; it was why he had started as a common soldier, like his father, rather than applying for a post as an auxiliary prefect.

But the thing the engineer was pointing at, still tangled with the peat, hardly looked like a body at first, more like a twisted bundle of shiny, darkened leather. Marcus blinked; behind him Nectovelius drew in a sharp hiss of breath and murmured something in his native British. Although Marcus was slowly learning the language, his optio’s words were too hurried and shaky for him to understand.

Then he _saw_ it: the slightly withered, drawn-up limbs; the strangely human face, for all that it was black and leathery, slightly distorted; the shock of red hair. There were faintly darker marks around one arm—some of the tribesmen had permanently inked skin—and a heavy gold torc around its neck. It was—had been—a man, or perhaps a boy, although it looked nothing like the papery corpses, dried and scoured by sand and desert wind, that he had seen sometimes when they dug new fortifications in Judaea-that-was. There was something strange and horrifying about it, as if it might open its terrible eyes and speak to them.

Marcus shivered, feeling as if a winter wind had whipped past him. He did not want to think on what it might say.

“The three-fold death,” said Nectovelius, behind him, very quietly. “He was a prince’s son, probably of the Brigantes. A sacrifice.”

Bile rose in Marcus’s throat, but he swallowed it back. The soldiers whispered that some of the tribes still sacrificed men in their secret rites, despite the laws against it, but he had dismissed those as rumor. Surely, once Rome had come, the people would have realized the barbarism of such practices.

“Hard to say how long ago he died, but there was an uprising here about five—no, six—years back,” Nectovelius said. “I expect he gave his life for victory then, much good it did his people.” Marcus could not tell from his optio’s even voice what he thought of the man’s sacrifice. Nectovelius was of the Dumnonii, in the south, but he was also a Roman citizen who had gone into the darkness of the earth and emerged with the Raven mark on his forehead, just as Marcus had.

The engineer, a Roman, had a look of revulsion on his face, the same revulsion Marcus felt. “What do you want me to do with it, sir?”

Marcus hesitated. His first thought was to burn it—would it even burn?—or to bury it deep with quicklime and forget he had ever seen it. But he did not want to risk angering the local Brigantes further, and somehow he also did not wish to belittle the man’s sacrifice, whoever he was. “Set it aside, out of the way,” he said. “Carefully! And cover it—him—with something. I will go into the settlement and ask the chief there what should be done. Nectovelius, you will need to come with me to translate.”

As it turned out, the local chief spoke Latin well enough that Marcus did not need Nectovelius’s services as a translator. The chief's lined face revealed nothing. “We will come and take the body away,” he said in his thick British accent. He did not thank Marcus, but Marcus had not expected thanks. Would the Brigantes rebury the dead man with honor, befitting the noble deeds of a chief’s son? Or would they destroy the body because the man’s sacrifice had failed to bring them victory? It should not have mattered to him; what was important was that the man from the bog would no longer cause the men to whisper and make the sign against evil, slowing their work even further.

Still, a part of him wished to know the fate of the man’s body, even if his soul had long departed. He must have been brave, to go to his death willingly, without the heat of battle to blunt the fear, and brave to sacrifice himself for his people. Perhaps it was not unlike what Publius Mus had done centuries earlier, when he dedicated himself to the gods of the underworld and rode out alone against the Gauls at Sentinum: a kind of devotio.

Back at their own camp, Nectovelius leaned over and said, “I heard the villagers talking. He was the son of the old chief, Cunoval, him that led the revolt—Esca, they called the man, although I do not know if that was his name before, or if they call him that because he was a sacrifice to the waters.”

 _Esca,_ Marcus thought. In Latin, it meant _food._ A dish for the gods, perhaps, but in the end it had done neither the man in the bog nor his people any favors. They would have done better to bow to Rome, and live.

Still, when he made his offering to Mithras that night, he thought of the man in the bog and prayed that his soul feasted in the halls of his own gods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More on [Devotio and Publius Decius Mus](http://www.livius.org/de-dh/devotio/devotio.html).
> 
> Nectovelius is actually a Brigantes name, not a Dumnonii one (as far as we know), but we have such a dearth of attested British names attached to specific tribes that I borrowed this one for a change from the usual. You can learn more about Nectovelius, son of Vindex* in [Sineala's intriguing post here](http://sineala.livejournal.com/1636857.html).
> 
> *Pronounced Windex. I will never not be amused by this one.


	2. The Boy From the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this lifetime, a Brigantes couple adopted a Roman boy found in a shipwreck, and he grew up running wild with the chieftain Cunoval's son. Unfortunately, life in the valley can't be idyllic forever for Marcos and Esca, because Rome is hungry....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for Part II:** Implied major character death, offscreen infanticide.

From his favorite tree, Marcos could see over the entire valley, all the way from his Altrawu’s little earth-walled dun up to the great hill-fort of Cunovalos on the hill. In spring the leaves hid him in a green cloak that danced in the breeze, so that the shouts of the other children playing or tending to the sheep reached him only faintly. He liked the quiet up there, alone with the wind and his thoughts.

On this day he was running his fingers over the gold charm he had worn when Mamma and Altrawu had found him on the shore, unconscious and draped over a flat piece of sea-battered wood. He did this often, as if he could force it to reveal the secret of his birth in the screaming eagle carved into the gold foil covering the rattling lead pouch. It was a strange thing; if it were not gold, he might have thought it a toy for babes, but who knew, with the Romans. It had the feel of power to it, like the things the chief’s druid made to protect the tribe. Perhaps his Roman mother had thought it would protect him.

If so, it must have worked, for he alone on that beach had yet breathed when his foster-parents came. But no matter how many times he pressed his fingers to the spread wings of the eagle and said all the Roman words he remembered-- _mater, pater, canis_ \--the name his Roman mother had given him remained stubbornly hidden away, washed from him in the waves. Once Mamma had told him that the sea-god Nodens must have taken Marcos’s name in exchange for his life.

He was Brigantes now, like Mamma, and when he was older he would swear his spear to Cunovalos as Altrawu had his own and those of the fifty men who followed him.

He nearly dropped the gold charm when the branches below him started rustling violently, but he tucked it away and drew his knife instead, gripping a sturdy branch with his other hand.

It was only Esca, the chief’s son, his cheerful narrow face peering up at Marcos. He was pink from the effort of the climb, and dirt smeared across his forehead. “I wondered where you kept disappearing to,” he said, and Marcos felt a wave of resentment, for the loss of his secret place. Were it any of the other boys, he could thrash him later and ensure the tree remained his alone, but this was the son of Cunovalos. The tree could never be truly his again.

“I like it up here,” Marcos mumbled. “It’s quiet.”

“Oh,” said Esca, the amusement vanishing from his face. “I--shall I climb down, then?”

And he looked so crestfallen at the thought that Marcos could no longer be angry with him. Esca had only been curious, and he had never treated Marcos any differently than the other boys, the ones with British mothers. “It’s all right,” said Marcos. “Stay if you like.”

To his surprise, Esca said no more, only settled into a nest of branches a little lower down and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. They sat there in companionable silence for a time, they climbed down just as silently once the sounds of the other children had faded. It would be time for the evening meal soon, and Marcos could almost taste Mamma’s stew already.

“Will you come eat with us?” he asked, feeling rather shy. Mamma was a good cook, but her food was surely not the fare the chief’s son was accustomed to.

Esca’s face split into a blinding grin, one that made Marcos feel as happy as he had when Altrawu had given him his first pup, a hunting hound to raise for his own. “I would be honored.” He leaned over and plucked a leaf from Marcos’s hair, whispering, “So no one will guess your secret.” And Marcos knew that someday he would be Esca’s man, hand and heart.

* * *

The first time Esca had brought him here, Marcos has nearly panicked, feeling as though the dark stone of the cliff was closing around him and he would be caught forever, unable to move forward or backwards. And then the crack had opened out into a tiny, perfect valley, just big enough for Marcos and Esca to sprawl comfortably on the grass beside the spring seeping out from the cliff-face and dripping down into a cool pool of sweet water. It was Esca’s secret place, in exchange for Marcos’s favorite tree, and they had kept it between them these past years as they grew, until Marcos was very nearly a man.

This was his last summer of childhood; when the leaves began to turn all colors of sunset and the frosts came, then he would enter into the secret rites with the other boys who had come of age, and then he would be counted a man, with a spear and a shield-shoulder to pledge as he willed.

Esca was unusually quiet today, and the movement of his knife was jerky. Ordinarily he might have carved a little hound or an eagle or some other animal for one of his younger brothers, but today the stick in his hand was almost scraped down to nothing, a pile of white shavings growing at his feet, and a frown was between his brows.

He swore, then, dropping the stub of the stick and shoving his thumb in his mouth.

“Esca,” said Marcos, “what troubles you?”

Esca looked over at him, his jaw set. He pinched his cut thumb with the blood-smeared thumb and forefinger of his other hand. Marcos did not think it was a bad cut, but even little wounds could bleed a great deal.

When it became clear that Esca would not answer, Marcos sighed and leaned over to wet the hem of his tunic in the cold water of the pool.

“Come here, you fool.” He alone outside of the royal family could say that to the son of Cunovalos, and it always made Esca smile, against all reason.

This time Esca did not smile, but he let Marcos wipe the blood away and press the cool, damp cloth to the cut. Finally, he said, “It is only that this autumn you will be a man, and I will not.” Always before the difference in their ages had seemed unimportant, but Marcos suddenly wished with a sharp ache that he could wait, and that they could be initiated before the gods together. Now, for the first time, there would be things that he could not tell Esca, not for another two summers.

“Two years is not so long.” Marcos tried to keep his voice light, although it seemed very long indeed.

Esca jerked his hand free so violently Marcos feared he would start bleeding again, and then he had clasped both of Marcos’s hands between his. “Swear to me you will not pledge your spear to another--swear it,” he said, his voice low and fierce. “Swear you will wait, that you will be my shieldbearer and no other’s, _mine._ ”

Marcos swallowed hard, a little taken aback by Esca’s intensity. “I will,” he said, and there was no doubt in him; had never been any doubt, not since that day below the tree when Esca had smiled at him. It would be no hard thing to wait two summers, not for Esca. “I am yours already, and well you know it.”

And then Esca was kissing him, his mouth hot and eager, his hands pressing Marcos back into an awkward tangle of limbs. Marcos was so surprised he simply let Esca in, just parted his lips and kissed back. They had touched each other before, rolling about in the way boys did, and of course they had stolen kisses from the older girls, but they had not kissed each other. In truth, every kiss Marcos had had before had been but a pale shadow of this.

The joy was on him then as they sank down into the fragrant grass, a bright unfurling in his chest. Two years was not so long, not so long at all.

* * *

They ate well that last night, listening for the tramp of hobnailed boots up the road from the Roman Wall; there was no longer any need to save food, not when they could smell their death on the wind. Earlier that evening Esca’s mother had knelt for her husband’s knife, calmly, with the dignity of the royal woman she was. Before that she had strangled her two young sons, Esca’s twin brothers who had followed at his heels since they were old enough to walk. Watching their little bodies being carried out for burial, Marcos felt a sharp pang of guilt at all the times he and Esca had avoided them, laughing at their childish disappointment.

But it did not matter now. Not Manduoriga’s death, nor the other women and children of the settlement who would lie in the earth before the night was out, nor those who were too afraid to do what was needful and would go into captivity. No one believed they could turn Rome back; it was only the last bright flare of a dying fire, a last defiant blaze against the falling night.

And so they ate well, at least the warriors; the stores of grain cooked into bread and porridge, the remainder of the dried summer fruit cooked up with the meagre game the hunters brought. Everything was bone-dry and sere, and the tribe had long been lean and hollow-eyed with hunger. Marcos ate carefully, not wishing to be ill after so long deprived. As the fires died down and Cunovalos’s bard sang the elegies he had already begun, Marcos saw others vanishing into the darkness outside the soft golden ring of the fire’s glow, with those women yet living, with friends and shieldbrothers, and he felt again Esca’s shoulder beside his, the warm comfort of it.

“Come,” he said, and Esca followed, unsmiling. It was easy enough to find privacy, the village eerily quiet. They undressed each other with the ease of long practice, hands and mouths traveling familiar paths, and after a time, overcome by some emotion he could not quite name, a need for something he could never have now, Marcos bent and pressed his lips to Esca’s breast, over his heart, and then to his nipple.

Above him Esca drew in a sharp breath of shock, and Marcos knew he understood that this was not simply a kiss, their ordinary affection, but fealty and love and all the things they never spoke of in words. And then Esca’s hand was resting in his hair, gently stroking. “Ah, Marcos,” he said, his voice shaking, “O my shieldbearer, my hound, my Marcos,” and after that he did not speak again, but only tilted his head back until his neck made a smooth pale line in the moonlight and let Marcos wring sounds from him that were beyond words.

In the morning they painted each other. Esca’s face was grim and set under the dark swirls of fresh paint, the shadow of fresh grief still upon him, but his eyes were clear, and before they scattered into the trees to wait for the approaching legion, he pulled Marcos into a fierce kiss. “Glad I am that the sea brought you to us.” His eyes glittered as though he might weep, but with a last press of hands he was gone; Marcos knew he would not say goodbye.

Before he took up his own place Marcos stopped by the sacred pool. He did not know what to pray for; victory was beyond them. _An honorable death,_ he thought at last. _Please, o goddess of the waters, an honorable death._ And he let the golden charm he had been found with slip from his fingers into the clear waters. He would die Brigantes, as he had lived, and perhaps he would see Esca again in the lands beyond the sunset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Marcos_ means "horse" in Brythonic; I didn't want Marcus to have a Roman name, but this is close enough to not be confusing for the reader (if awfully coincidental in the story universe).
> 
>  _Altrawu_ means "foster-father" in Brythonic; _Mamma_ means "mother" or "foster-mother."
> 
>  _Manduoriga_ means "pony queen"; I like using it for Esca's mum.
> 
> I am inclined to think that Esca's brothers were older, in both versions of canon, but in AUs I rather like playing with his family structure. I also fudged the ages for this one--in the book they're the same age (or Esca is a year older); in the movie I think there's probably about five years between them, with Marcus being older. For this AU to work I had to narrow the gap.
> 
> In some Celtic cultures, nipple-kissing was an act of fealty to a chief. No, really.
> 
> (I think of all the AUs in this story, this one broke my heart the most, because they came the closest to being happy.)


	3. The Fork in the Path

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this lifetime Marcus is the peregrinus (freeborn non-citizen) son of Marcus Flavius Aquila, primus pilus of the Ninth Legion Hispana, and his Iceni woman Melina; Esca is the local Brigantes chieftain's son, and they are quite good friends until the walls their lives place between them grow too great to surmount...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for Part III:** bad break-up, major character death.

Marcus was not quite old enough to understand what it meant when the news came that the Ninth was lost in Caledonia and his father would not come back. The grief he understood. His mother’s eyes were always red-rimmed now from weeping, and when she smiled at the customers who came to buy bread it was false. Sometimes he wished he could cry himself, but there was only a hard aching knot in his chest and a sickness in his belly, and no matter how much he thought of the kind, laughing man who had been his father, the tears would not come. Perhaps there was something wrong with him; everyone else had cried at the funeral, made loud proclamations of grief while Marcus only stood there like a stone and could not weep.

The rest of it he did not understand until later. “It would only have been a few more years,” his mother Melina told him, “then we could truly have been married and you his heir. But now--”

There would be no Eagles for Marcus now, not without citizenship. Indeed, Marcus would not be his name in the eyes of Rome, although his mother still called him that.

At first some of his father’s friends, those who had not been with the Ninth, still came by with little gifts for his mother, words of comfort for her grief and a sort of rough kindness for her son. But after a time their visits were fewer, and then ceased entirely.

Marcus told himself that they must have been sent away to other posts. That was why they did not come.

* * *

In the autumn of his twelfth year, his mother took him to the Brigantes settlement outside the city, where the chieftain Cunoval still kept to the old ways in his village of thatch-roofed roundhouses. Cunoval's infant son had grown ill with a deep cough and a fever as the damp winds blew in from the north, and by then Melina had made her healing skills known to the local tribe.

She left him outside, where scattered stands of ash coppiced for spear-shafts were beginning to shed their golden leaves, but it was a warm day for autumn and pleasant enough.

"What are you do here?" came a sharp voice with a strong British accent, and Marcus turned to see a boy a few years younger than him, with sharp-cut features and wild brown hair halfway down his back, dressed in the British manner. His light cloak was caught at the shoulder with a gold fibula.

"My mother came to see to the chief's youngest son," Marcus said in British, feeling guilty for no reason at all, for he had a perfect right to be there. It was not his fault he looked like his Roman father and not his Iceni mother, who had followed the Ninth to Eburacum. "He's sick."

The boy glanced towards the hut with worry. "I hope she can help my brother. I am Esca, eldest son of Cunoval."

"Eriros Aquilae filius," said Marcus, with the pang he still felt every time he remembered that his father marched into Caledonia two years ago and never returned. “Eriros mapos Aquilas,” he added, remembering that Esca’s Latin was not very good.

“Eriros,” said Esca, holding out an arm for Marcus to clasp. His grip was firm and warm, his smile friendly, and Marcus felt the same warmth he had felt when he had lured an injured dog to him and coaxed it to eat and allow his mother to bind up its leg, the wondrous warmth of gaining the trust of a wary creature. “I think we shall be great friends.”

* * *

They ran wild that autumn, when they did not have other duties, hunting and wrestling as boys would. Esca taught Marcus the songs of the Brigantes—all half-familiar, a little like the Iceni songs his mother sang sometimes about her herb-work or when she kneaded bread—and the secret ways of the land, and Marcus helped Esca with his Latin, until they could both switch between languages with the ease of a salmon leaping.

When spring came, Marcus convinced the Greek surgeon down the street to teach him to read and write in exchange for his labor, for Marcus was already tall and strong for his age, perhaps thanks to the blood of his Iceni grandfather. It was often bloody work, cleaning and sharpening the knives until they shone, helping to hold down patients for more difficult surgeries, and a great deal of carting piles of reddened bandages and sheets about. But, he told himself, he would see a great deal of blood when he finally joined an auxiliary cohort, and if he ever wished to be more than a common soldier he would need to be able to read and write.

Esca only shook his head and said he could not think why Marcus would need to read; although they shared many confidences, Marcus had not brought himself to say that he meant to become a soldier.

The years passed, and as they grew older their mock-wrestling in the furs slowly turned to other ways to heat the blood on cold nights. Marcus knew vaguely that this was not something a Roman should do, but there were still twenty-five years’ of military service before he would be a Roman. Now, in this time, Esca was the person he cared most for in the world besides his own mother and he could deny him nothing. He bore Esca’s knife and Esca bore his, and nothing could part them.

* * *

“You ride near as well as a Gaul!” said the decurion princeps of the Gaulish cavalry wing that came through the countryside when Marcus was in his eighteenth year, recruiting to make up for losses in putting down some tribal rebellion. And that was that--Marcus made his oath, _and the same for me,_ and received the lead tablet with his name and unit graven in it, _ERIROS AQVILAE F ALA II GALL._ He would wear it in a pouch around his neck for the remainder of his service, so that they would know him on the battlefield if he died. It was not unlike the signacula used to identify slaves, Marcus thought, although he would never voice it.

Esca’s face was white as chalk when Marcus told him, and he flung Marcus’s knife down on the ground where it stuck in the turf point-first, quivering. “If ever I speak to you again,” he said in British, his voice cold as ice and his eyes colder, “may the green earth open and swallow me, may the gray seas roll in and overwhelm me, may the sky of stars fall on me and crush us out of life forever.”

“Esca--” said Marcus, reaching out a hand, baffled by Esca’s cold anger. He had not expected this. Cunoval lived right up near the walls of Eburacum; Esca spoke Latin. He had thought Esca would understand.

“If ever we meet again, _Marcus,_ ” Esca said, and for the first time Marcus heard his name as something bitterly Roman, “I swear to you that one of us will die.”

He left, then, his back straight with all the pride of a chieftain’s son, and he did not look back. That night Marcus knelt by his bed and wept, the tears he had not been able to shed all those years ago when his father died.

* * *

Over time that ache that Esca had left in him became a dull, faint thing that only bothered him sometimes in the winter months, when idleness gave him too much time to think. The rest of the time he kept to himself and tended his mounts and did as he was bade. There was a great deal less excitement in military life than he had thought as a boy, but he was content enough at Olenacum, close enough to visit his mother when he took leave. Still, he kept the knife Esca had once given him; although he did not use it and it pained him to look at it, he could not quite give it up.

And then the Brigantes at Eburacum rose up and it was all flames and the low drone of the boar-headed carnyx, the great British war-horn, and the rattling whir of the British chariot wheels. There was a cold place in Marcus’s chest when he saw between one heartbeat and another the face of the man driving the enemy druid’s scythe-bladed war-chariot, his bare chest painted with designs Marcus had seen before as a boy in Eburacum. He could not forget that face, not in an entire lifetime, even with the years between them that had carved a man out of a boy. The man looked through Marcus as though he was only another Roman, as if they had never shared anything, and Marcus’s hand tightened in determination on his javelin as he prepared to throw.

It was as if he pierced his own heart, and when the panicked horses and driverless chariot bore down on him, he knew he would die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Eriros" means _eagle_ in Brittonic; Eriros Aquilae filius would be "Eriros son of Aquila," the Latin form of a peregrinus' names. Eriros mapos Aquilas means the same thing in Brittonic ( _mapos_ is the ancestor of both Welsh _(m)ap_ and Gaelic _mac_ ).
> 
> We don't have any surviving Roman soldiers' dogtags that I know of, so I guessed it would be abbreviated name and unit; ALA II GALL would be in full _Ala II Gallorum (Sebosiana)_ , the Second Wing of (Sebosian) Gauls, which as near as I can tell is the same unit called [Ala Augusta Sebosiana](http://www.roman-britain.org/military/alaseb.htm).
> 
> "May the green earth open and swallow me, may the gray seas roll in and overwhelm me, may the sky of stars fall on me and crush us out of life forever," is an oath Sutcliff used in a few books, perhaps most notably in _The Lantern Bearers._


	4. The Soldier With the Eagle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this lifetime, Esca son of Cunoval drives his mother's chariot into battle at a hopeless last stand, at which a young Roman soldier sees battle for perhaps the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for Part IIII:** Major character death, off-age infanticide.

Esca’s mother looked like the goddess Brigantia herself as she stepped out of the great roundhouse of the chief, clad in braccae and kilted-up tunic, her hair braided up under an iron helmet. Someone had found her a mail shirt and she had spent the morning polishing and sharpening the sword at her side, the sword she had not taken up in battle since before Esca was born.

There was a bundle in her arms, cradled as tenderly as ever mother had cradled living babe, and Esca knew it was his sister, the girl-child yet too young to be named. His mother had wept over stillborn babes as long as Esca could remember, and this living daughter, the daughter she had longed for and come to believe she would never have, had been everyone’s favorite. Their father had played with her in the evenings, tossing and catching her as she giggled with delight, letting her tug on his moustache and braids; Esca’s older brothers had carved her toys and brought her sweet forest berries when she was old enough to eat them. And Esca--

He turned away for a moment, swallowing hard. He could not let grief overcome him; if his mother could walk out of the house with her mouth set in a grim line and her eyes dry after what she had done, Esca could save his grief.

“Esca,” she said, something husky in her voice as her hands stroked the baby, soothing cries that would never come again. “Will you drive my chariot?”

Esca knelt then, and kissed the hem of her tunic. “I will, mother.”

She touched his hair, gently. “You are my youngest now, my heart.” Her voice was distant, remote, as if some part of her had already gone beyond the sunset with the babe.

They all would, soon enough.

* * *

They went into battle singing, in the old way, a high fierce song with no tune, a red song, a death song. Esca could feel the living strength of the matched blacks of his mother’s chariot pair through the reins, their willingness and energy, and his heart leapt in him, the hot battle-heat pushing out grief and fear. Behind him in the chariot his mother stood spear-straight, her own ash-spear held at the ready, and all around them was the sound of hooves and running men and the high, wild battle-song. The drone of the boar-headed carnyx cut through the low thunder, vibrating through Esca’s bones and the wicker of the chariot, and Esca could smell wet earth and cut turf flung up by the horses’ hooves, and the scent of oncoming rain. The battlefield would be churned to mud quickly enough, slipping and being trampled as much of a danger as Roman swords.

Esca bent low over the reins, crouching in the front of the chariot and calling sweet words to the horses. He had helped raise these two, fed them as foals when their dam broke her leg in a badger hole and had to be killed, trained them as colts, and they responded to his voice and his hand on the reins as to no other, drawing their long legs up and coursing over the ground as one.

They crashed into the Roman lines with the fury of storm-waves on a rocky shore, the battle-song losing its thread as the warriors lost breath for it. Esca could see his brothers fighting shoulder-to-shoulder ahead of him, as one, as they had done everything together since their birth, the twin sons of Cunoval. In their armor and helmets he could not even tell them apart at this distance, although they were as different in face as twins could be.

His mother was screaming, a high keening shriek as she thrust about with her spear and Romans fell under the horses’ hooves, their red tunics and shining armor ground into the churn of mud and worse things under them. Esca wrapped the reins around his waist and wielded his own spear as best he could; this was not how things had been done in the old days, when the noble warriors rode their chariots to the battlefield and then dismounted to fight.

It was all he could do to control the horses, so he did not see the small, dark men in green tunics and scaled armor wheel around the side, flanking the Brigantes force. Above him his mother gave a horrible, bubbling cry, and when he risked a glance backwards he saw her sway, an arrow through her throat and red foam around it, blood soaking wine-dark down the front of her tunic. She swayed and fell, tumbling from the chariot, and Esca could do nothing.

He turned back, standing up in the chariot just as the horses, panicked, bore down on a unit of soldiers. Esca was faintly aware that he was screaming too now, in rage and grief. His eyes locked for a moment with those of one of the soldiers, a man only a few years older than him, still with the softness of boyhood, and he saw terror there for a moment--sweet, sweet as the water from the sacred well above the village, sweet as the fruit Esca’s brothers had picked for their dead sister--and then determination as the soldier lifted his spear to throw.

Esca could not move out of the way fast enough, and it took him through the gut, sending him sprawling backwards over the low-slung platform of the chariot, still tangled in the reins. It did not even hurt at first, even as the horses reared, confused by the weight on the reins, and the chariot tilted wildly and finally turned over, sending Esca rolling into the filth of the battlefield.

Then it hurt, more than anything, as if someone had reached into his stomach and was stirring around with a knife. He was dimly aware of someone leaning over him, a wooden pendant of some bird dangling before his eyes, something like the toys his brothers had carved for the baby. Somewhere in the distance Esca could hear the wail of an infant, and a mother’s soothing voice raised in a lullaby--or a lament.

Then a sharper pain in his chest, and then only blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the book, Esca was his father's charioteer for a time; I think here he is likely past being anyone's charioteer, but his mother likely doesn't have a regular charioteer, so. (Again, I like experimenting with different family structures for Esca.)
> 
> In my mind, Marcus doesn't make it through this battle, either, but there was no way to show that without going omniscient-POV.


	5. The Eagle and the Arm-Ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this lifetime, Marcus Flavius Aquila died of his wounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for Part V: Major character death.

Esca could not even bring himself to be angry that his death had been stolen from him, not when it had been a girl with hair the color of red amber who had stood up in the crowded stands of the arena and screamed for mercy. She was not even yet a woman, probably one of the local Atrebates, although she wore the tunic and veil of a Roman lady.

It was not as if he would not die the next time he was put into the ring. She had only bought him a reprieve with her bravery, as tall and splendid in that moment despite her Roman clothing as Boudica of the Iceni must have been before that last battle. It was easy to imagine her driving a chariot into battle, her cloak rippling behind her, or carrying shield and spear. Some of the women of his clan had been so, before.

And so he was not angry. He would die soon enough, and he was glad to have seen the British girl first, to know that there was still fire in some of the people of Britain.

But the next day an old man came to buy him from the master of the arena. He bustled in a cautious sort of manner, like a goat exploring rocky ground, and he looked as though he expected Esca to bite him. If he had not been so exhausted and bruised, his ribs aching every time he drew a breath, Esca might have laughed. “My name is Stephanos. You’ve been bought by Lucius Flavius Aquila,” the man said. “Come along now.”

The walk to Aquila’s villa was long and dusty, made longer by the discomfort of Esca’s hands bound in front of him. The old slave seemed unwilling to unbind him just yet. Perhaps that was wise, Esca thought bitterly; he had nowhere to run, not here in Calleva, in the heart of Roman lands, but if he ran they might kill him, and he would have his death after all, and the British girl need never know.

Aquila lived outside of town, in a small villa set up against a lake. He was a jovial older man who teased Stephanos almost as if he considered him a friend, and he paid Esca little mind. Esca took his orders from Stephanos and from Sassticca the cook, an old British woman who clearly thought little of Esca. Esca avoided her as much as he could after she clouted him about the head for letting a roast goose scorch. He had never done this kind of work before; his previous masters had not wanted him in the house, and it was certainly not the work of a chieftain’s son. Mostly he tended Aquila’s horses, for Stephanos was growing too old to shovel hay and manure every day.

Esca liked the horses: two of them were placid beasts, used to drawing carts and carrying Aquila into town when he went to visit friends. But the other--the other was a great black stallion, a skittish beast not yet fully trained to the saddle. Old Aquila was fit for a man of his age, but surely he didn’t mean to break the animal himself.

There were other puzzles in the Aquila household, too: the way even Sassticca’s brash tones softened when Aquila was around; how Aquila spent long hours sitting by the lake, staring into the water and doing nothing; how Stephanos fussed over him at meals, as if he feared his master would forget to eat if they did not give him the choicest of foods presented in the most appetizing manner. It was all rather ridiculous, Esca thought.

But then there was the table in the tablinum. Esca was not permitted to touch it, or anything on it, when he cleaned the room. It was only a small table, covered with a red wool cloth, rough as a scrap from a soldier’s cloak; on it sat a crude wooden eagle on a string and a heavy bronze arm-ring. There were words on the arm-ring, and Esca could read a little, but only some of the text was visible without touching the thing: DELIS. It was not a word he knew.

* * *

That night, as he lay on his pallet and tried to sleep, he heard Stephanos and Sassticca whispering outside the door. “It has only been a few months,” said Sassticca.

“He hardly knew the lad.”

“But you know he wanted a son.”

“He will heal,” said Stephanos. “In time. We all heal. You know that.”

A sharp intake of breath from Sassticca, loud enough for Esca to hear, and then the sound of a slap. “Never speak of that to me again,” she said, low. “You know nothing of it.”

Sassticca’s footsteps down the hall, her sandal slapping against the floor. Stephanos stepped inside, and Esca closed his eyes, feigning sleep as the old man readied himself for bed.

The next day Esca stared at the table longer. The wooden eagle looked like a child’s toy, but the arm-ring could only fit a man’s wrist. It was plain, apart from the writing. Esca had sometimes seen soldiers in town wear similar arm-rings. A soldier, not Aquila’s son by birth, but beloved. Perhaps the eagle had been some childhood toy.

“Don’t dawdle,” said Stephanos from the doorway. “The master will be having guests tonight, and Sassticca needs help in the kitchen.”

With a last glance at the table and a sullen look at Stephanos--once he had been second in his clan, and now he had to obey the orders of a foreign slave!--Esca stepped towards the doorway.

“His nephew, Marcus Aquila,” said Stephanos quietly. “They brought him here in the autumn from some fort up past the Wall, half-dead from his injuries. He died shortly before you came here.”

“Oh,” said Esca. Another dead Roman soldier. He should have been glad of it, but for the sadness it had draped over this house like a cloak over a dead man. Even sour old Sassticca seemed to have cared for Aquila’s dead nephew. What kind of man had he been?

“He saved most of his cohort,” continued Stephanos, proudly. “Some kind of native uprising--he stood against the leader and his chariot with only a spear.” He stopped then, and paled slightly at whatever expression Esca had allowed onto his face. “Hurry along, then! Sassticca’s waiting for you.”

 _Some kind of native uprising,_ Esca thought bitterly. Like the one his father Cunoval had led nearly seven years earlier; the one his family and everyone he loved had died in. Whichever northern tribe it was that had killed Marcus Aquila, they doubtless had as much cause.

And yet--this Marcus must have been a brave man, to stand down a charging chariot with only a spear. As brave as any hero in the stories Cunoval’s bard had sung, the stories Esca’s mother had told him from the cradle.

When he groomed the horses that day the black stallion snorted and stamped a little less, leaned into the brush a little more. The horse was growing used to Esca now, and Esca realized suddenly that the horse must have been for Aquila’s nephew; that Aquila, in hope, had thought Marcus would train it, when he was well.

“Hush,” Esca murmured to the stallion, holding out a flat hand with a piece of bread so the horse could lip at it. “You’re bored in here, aren’t you? You need more exercise. You need to run.”

* * *

The guests, some retired military men from town, had long gone, but a lamp still burned in Aquila’s study. “Domine,” Esca said, ducking his head as he hesitated at the door of the tablinum. It still sat ill on him, this deference, but there were worse masters than Aquila, and it was clear the gods did not yet mean him to die.

Aquila looked up from his writing and blinked owlishly. “Esca?” he said, and grimaced. “Is that really your name?”

“Yes, domine,” said Esca, tightening his jaw. Romans always had something witty to say about his name.

“What did you wish to say?”

“The black horse,” said Esca, pushing back his surprise when Aquila made no clever remark. “He needs exercise, and someone to train him. Domine.”

Aquila looked at Esca then, really _looked_ at him until Esca felt terribly uncomfortable. He was used to staying beneath the notice of Romans as much as possible. It was safer that way.

Finally he said: “Do you know why I bought you?”

Esca could not stop himself from starting at that; he had imagined a number of responses, but not that one. “To care for the horses?” he finally managed.

“I could have bought any strong young man to do that; I had no need for an ex-gladiator in my peaceful house.” Aquila shook his head. “No, when my little neighbor Camilla told me what you had done in the arena, I thought--” He broke off for a moment, pressing his fingers to his temples, and his voice sounded a little choked. “Forgive me--I have recently lost my nephew, and the grief is fresh. I thought--here is a man my nephew would have respected. And I could not let you die there.”

So Esca did owe the British girl his life after all; if he saw her again he would have to thank her. He would like to see her again; he did not think her name could truly be Camilla, not with hair like that.

“You may do what you wish with the horses,” said Aquila quietly. “I should sell the black, but--I cannot, yet, and it is better if he is trained first, so--do what you will.”

“Thank you, domine.”

Perhaps, Esca thought, when he did well with the stallion, he could convince Aquila to let him train more horses and keep a portion of the profits, and in time he could earn enough to purchase his freedom. Perhaps his future held hope.

Marcus Aquila had probably thought that once, Esca thought with a shiver, as he marched in jangling armor to a new post at a northern fort, not knowing his fate lay under the scythe-bladed wheels of a British war-chariot. But Esca was no longer a warrior, as this Marcus had been, and perhaps there would be another path for him, in time, another way to regain his honor. He had no one to be angry with now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I often do, I located the fort in the movie at Habitancum, north of Hadrian's Wall, rather than Isca Dumnoniorum.
> 
> I am 98% sure that Esca's future in this one includes Cottia and a horse farm. :-)


	6. The Long Road From Calleva

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, on wolf-watch at dawn and dusk, Marcus thinks he sees things in the mists. Once it was a young soldier with the bull of the Sixth Legion Victrix on his shield; another time a dark-haired warrior with a Roman child’s gold bulla about his neck and the ink of the Tribes winding woad-blue around his arms in the same elaborate spirals as Esca’s own tattoos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings! Yay!

If there was one thing Marcus had learned in the army, it was that imagination was a poor possession for a soldier. He soon lost count of the number of times he’d found a raw recruit sleepless and shaking before a battle, pale and queasy with imagining the many unpleasant ways he could die, or worse.

The best soldiers were the stolid ones with no more imagination than a plowhorse; the ones who simply kept their mouths shut and followed orders and never thought about what _might_ happen.

Of course, they were no fit material for officers.

Still, Marcus had always thought himself blessedly free from the curse of too much imagination. Since coming to Britain, since the injury that still pained him on damp days, he had begin to wonder. Perhaps it was something in the air of this isle, the chilly sea-mists and eldritch fogs that made of the endless rolling green hills of the Downs a strange realm where a man could lose his way for hours. Perhaps it was that tending sheep left a great deal of the mind free to wander. Perhaps it was the stories Esca told on long winter evenings around the fire, stories of gods and heroes and monsters, stories as far from the sun-warmed tales of his Etrurian youth as anything he could imagine.

Sometimes, on wolf-watch at dawn and dusk, what Esca called the thin times when spirits walked, he thought he saw things in the hills, things that were neither living man nor beast. Once it was a young soldier with the bull of the Sixth Legion Victrix on his shield; another time a dark-haired warrior with a Roman child’s gold bulla about his neck and the ink of the Tribes winding woad-blue around his arms in the same elaborate spirals as Esca’s own tattoos. Only a glimpse he had each time, never enough to see the spirit’s face, but each time he knew in his bones that it was no living man vanishing into the mists.

Every time he felt chilled afterwards, as if for a moment inflexible Morta had set her abhorred shears to the thread of his life.

He never spoke of these things to Esca. They were only the imaginings of a man who had been awake and alone with his thoughts too long, his mind playing tricks with the cursed fog of the chalk country. Esca would only think him foolish, and make some comment about Romans, and then Marcus would have to be annoyed with him for the evening, and he could think of much better things to do with Esca than be annoyed. Better to keep his own counsel and say nothing.

* * *

When Ebicatos, one of the hired men, came to relieve him of wolf-watch, Marcus made his way back to the little wattle-and-daub farmhouse he and Esca. The farm was doing well enough that perhaps next year they could have a stone-built house with a tile roof, and not have to worry about leaking thatch anymore. 

There was a lamp burning at the door to guide him, a faint flicker of light in the darkness, and he quickened his step, thinking of warmth and venison stew and the way Esca would smile at him when he came inside.

The first cold prickles of rain hit his back and neck just as he reached the house, and he spared a thought for poor Ebicatos, although he had to admit he was glad it was not him out in the rain with the sheep. He found Esca sitting on the floor in front of the hearth-fire, the runt of Lachne’s latest litter cradled in his arms as he tried to coax it to suck milk from a twist of rag.

The smile he gave Marcus was everything Marcus had imagined out in the cold, a smile that warmed him to the core with its sweetness. Esca had not been much given to smiling when they met, and Marcus still thought each smile, whether a faint mocking shadow or a broad grin, was a treasure.

“There’s stew left for you in the pot.”

“Thank you.” Marcus fetched a bowl and sat down by Esca to eat, as the hound pup wriggled and mouthed at the rag. “Is she taking suck?”

Esca grimaced. “A little, but not enough. I am afraid she is not meant to live.”

It put him in mind of his earlier thoughts, out in the hills, and after a moment Marcus asked, “Esca, do your people believe in fate?”

A quick, puzzled look; Esca’s eyes glittered in the firelight. “I do not know that word.”

“Destiny,” said Marcus. “Ah--that the shape of a man’s life is not made by his own will, but by the gods. We believe that there are three Fates, the Parcae: Nona who spins the thread of life, Decima who measures it, and Morta who chooses the manner of a man’s death and cuts the thread.”

Esca was silent for a long moment, and the only sound was the crackling of the fire and the faint, broken suckling of the pup at the rag. “Nothing like that, no; there are Tribes that believe a man’s path is set by the gods, but nothing like your thread of life. As for the Brigantes, well, there is sometimes a great hero whose deeds and manner of death are foretold by prophecy, and no man may change them, but I do not think that is quite the same thing. Few of us are Caratacos or Cartimandua.” He turned to Marcus, his brows drawn together in a frown. “Marcus, what has brought these thoughts to your mind?”

Marcus shrugged, scraping his spoon around the bowl for the last bits of stew. “Nothing. Well, only that it is cold and lonely out with the sheep, and sometimes my thoughts take strange turns in the mists. That is all.”

 _What if,_ he thought, _what if you had died in the arena? What if you had decided to make your home with the Seal People, and left me to their mercy?_

_What if we had never met?_

“Well, do not let your thoughts grow too strange.” Esca reached over and pressed his hand for a moment to Marcus’s cheek, startling him out of his melancholy thoughts. “You are already quite strange enough. Here, will you try for a bit? I am still hungry.”

He handed the puppy and the rag to Marcus and pushed the bowl of milk to sit beside him. The pup was a solid, warm thing, small and fragile enough for Marcus to cup her in one hand, yet with as much life in her wriggling form as any full-grown dog. She would be beautiful when grown, he thought, with her brindled fur and small round ears, and he ached at the thought that she might not live to lope through the sheep-pastures at his heels, her tongue lolling in a canine grin. Would not, if they could not get her to take the milk, he thought grimly, and dipped the rag in the bowl again. “Come, little one,” he murmured under his breath, offering it to her again. “Please, you must.”

And this time, this time at last her little muzzle latched on to the rag and she took suck, strong and true.

“It is remarkable how such a tiny creature can drink so noisily,” said Esca, but there was a smile in his voice and when Marcus looked he had turned a little pink with pleasure. “Of course she’ll eat for _you,_ not I who have been trying to feed her all evening, the contrary little beast.”

“Perhaps she likes my hands.”

“ _I_ like your hands,” Esca said, managing to lend a remarkable amount of implication to the words. “Will you feed me too, now?”

“Later.” Marcus grinned to himself, looking down at the brindled pup, still sucking fiercely at the rag. He really was fortunate. He had his life, and Esca, and their farm, and what did it matter if their fate was set by the gods or not when he already had so much more than he deserved?

Esca rose to his feet with the economical grace Marcus had always envied. “I am for bed in a moment,” he said, resting his fingers lightly against the bare skin at the nape of Marcus’s neck, a promise. “Come to me when she’s done?”

“Yes,” said Marcus, and thought _always._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all the folks who weighed in on evidence for Celtic belief in fate (seasight, jeanquirieplus, celzmccelz, and the_little_owl). In the end, I went for what made the most dramatic sense, since the later beliefs we do have evidence for may have been influenced by Classical thought--in the end, we know less than I would like. [Here's the discussion](http://carmarthen.livejournal.com/422672.html), for anyone who's interested.
> 
> The curse of too much imagination for a warrior is a theme Sutcliff revisited more than once: the two that most stuck out to me so far were _The Shield Ring_ and _Sun Horse, Moon Horse_.


End file.
